The success story of Wato Events
”Even blokarting is now easy to schedule”
At Wato Events, you’ve come to the right place for fun beach, water, and indoor activities. For the past few years, the company has also had its own beach club, making for a perfect active day out. Behind the scenes, a lot needs to be organized for that to happen. Bartjan van den Beukel explains how they handle it at Wato Events today.
Activities on the beach
“Wato Events started in 2011 with our successful activity blokarting, also known as beach sailing,” Bartjan recalls. “Over the years, we added more activities, which we organized in combination with other beach clubs. We now offer around twenty different activities on the beach and have about fifty employees. It’s super fun!” he says enthusiastically.
Everything manually
“At the beginning, we handled bookings for activities and outings using Gmail and Google Calendar. Everything had to be entered manually. It worked fine, but it took more and more time as we expanded our offerings. That’s when we realized it was time for good management software. Recras was already on our radar, but we encountered a problem. Was it possible to customize it for our most booked activity: blokarting?”
Blokarting was the stumbling block
“To be able to beach sail, you need low tide. This can only be scheduled in a block of four to six hours per day, and that block shifts by an hour each day. This means that one week you can only ride in the morning, and the next week only in the afternoon. That was always the stumbling block. This activity was difficult to book and was the main reason we didn’t choose a program like Recras earlier.”
A lot of time saved
“Since I found it an attractive system, we talked again last year. It turned out that the shifting tide couldn’t be automatically implemented in the system, but it could be entered manually. So that’s what I did. I requested the tides for the entire year from Rijkswaterstaat and entered them all manually. Yes, it took me a whole day, but next year it will save me a lot of time because I no longer need to send an email to people who make a reservation. Recras takes care of that. Previously, I would spend ten to fifteen minutes per booking on that.”
Extra staff member
“What really works well are the standard emails the program sends. You enter your entire business operations and your own arrangements, and everything is taken care of. That was a lot of work and took a lot of time, but once you have it set up correctly, it takes a lot of work off your hands. I see Recras as an extra staff member. Like a secretary who keeps me updated, makes sure emails and reminders are sent, and shows me if someone needs to pay. It helps me stay organized and ensures we remain visible to clients. And that’s super important, otherwise, they might look for another events company and take the job away from us.”
Overview
“As soon as you open Recras, you have an overall view. You immediately see which actions need follow-up, and you’re one click away from quotes and invoices that are overdue. Before, with Gmail, we used various separate programs, but with Recras, everything is within one system. It’s easy, and that’s why it works so fast.”
More professional
“Recras is a program where you need to invest a lot of time upfront to customize it, but that investment pays off handsomely in time and convenience. You also present yourself much more professionally to your clients. If you create a nice PDF with your own logos, branding, and photos, and set up the program, your quotes look professional. It gives a better impression of your company.”
Highly recommended
“Yes, I would definitely recommend Recras to others,” Bartjan concludes. “Absolutely. Maybe it’s a big investment for a small business, but as your business grows, it’s a program that grows with you. It’s like an extra staff member that keeps everything organized.”
Functionalities used
Online in 5 steps
- Enter products and packages
- Add starting times and material
- Link with our payment provider Mollie
- Create a workflow to follow up bookings
- Embed the booking module on your website